On the one hand, Lucas Oil Ford driver Larry Morgan was happy with his Ford Mustang's performance in the first round of the O'Reilly Auto Parts NHRA SpringNationals on Sunday. On the other, however, he was not at all happy with his performance.

Morgan left the starting line .033-second too soon in his matchup with Vincent Nobile, and his race ended early.

"Anymore, you always go up there and try to kill the Tree," Morgan said. "That's how tough this class is. Every time I go up there I'm going after it, but he'd have been tough to beat."

Nobile had a .013-second reaction time and made a pass of 6.618 seconds at 209.82 mph to advance to the second round. Morgan's e.t. was close, 6.632 at 209.01 mph, but the race was over on the starting line.

Morgan's wife Diane and son Nick poked fun at the veteran driver because of it, saying he should have to drive the team's transporter home to Newark, Ohio, and then not be allowed to take part of an Ohio ritual, mushroom hunting.

"I probably should drive the truck home after that," Morgan said with a smile. "I've got to have glasses to mushroom hunt anymore. I'll take my grandson and have him pick them out for me."

Joking aside, Morgan was still pleased with his pass Sunday. The run was the eighth-quickest in the first round and marked another solid pass for Morgan this weekend.

"I'm real happy about how we ran," Morgan said. "We ran pretty good, and we probably had a hundredth or two left in it. That's pretty good for here.

"I think we ran good, and now we just need to carry it to Atlanta as we get ready for three in a row."

The Atlanta race, the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals on May 16-18 at Atlanta Dragway, marks the start of three races on consecutive weekends.

But the performance in Houston gives Morgan some confidence going forward.

"I thought we ran real well," Morgan said. "I'm really happy with the way we ran. If we can make good runs, we can run within a couple hundredths of the normal people. You can take out a couple who aren't normal, like Allen (Johnson) and Erica (Enders-Stevens). They're incredibly fast, and my hat's off to the them."

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